While I've been enjoying this series, it's been lacking "something" to make me truly love it. This episode had that "something."
Before I start talking about this episode though, it's worth mentioning that I'm a complete hopeless romantic. I love fluff. Cute romantic stuff? I am so there. So, after saying in my post on episode 5 that I really liked the introduction of the romantic angle since it allowed the characters far more growth than just watching them milling around, I was really happy to see this episode start with a love confession. And it just kept getting better from there. While the first half was amusing with watching the rest of the gang fail at stalking Yuta as well as the awkward yet adorable first date, the second half to took it to another level. We were getting near Kimi ni Todoke levels of relationship drama here, all pulled off in the space of a couple minutes. And for me at least, it greatly succeeded. I think a lot of that has to do with how the situation was conveyed; specifically what was said and what wasn't said. For example, the fact that this girl really does like Yuta is a no-brainer, but she confesses because of pressure from her friends (using the term "friends" loosely here), not because she was ready to tell him. Despite the fact that it worked out for her, she's still embarrassed to let her friends see them together (hiding the CD, constantly apologizing, not wanting to leave). The strong implication is that she just wasn't ready for a relationship despite her feelings towards him, as shown by her line towards the end, "Love's not that simple."
And then there's Yuta. At the beginning, it isn't clarified if he accepted her confession because he really liked her or because he felt an obligation to do so, but the implication is towards the latter, since he doesn't talk to his friends about it all, not even with his twin brother (until he calls them out on their failtastic stalking in a pretty funny scene). And Chizuru also points out that guys will date girls even if they don't like them for...certain other reasons. But Yuta definitely warms up to her, as seen through his actions and comments. Despite the episode being named after the book that she picks out on their date, I think that the real heart of the episode was in the conversation about the CD, when they discuss learning to like something. I don't think that he would've hung around with her after school and listened to her friend (using the term loosely again) problems unless he liked her at least a little bit. Bringing up the CD again in that scene, mentioning that he likes it a lot more now, brought it home that he wasn't just talking about the music anymore. And while it's sad that they didn't stay together, it really is the best option at this time. Like I said above, she just wasn't ready to be real with her feelings yet. I really hope that this isn't the last time that we see her, though. Even if nothing more happens with this relationship, I'd like to know that she's still around. In the meantime, can we have more awesome relationship episodes like this one, please?
Additional Screenshots D'AWWWWW (and more stalking fail)
Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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